DELICIOUS, isn't it ? The rosy little
fellows, doubling up their tiny fists and
stretching out their little arms and legs, one
this way, one that, as gracefully said
unconsciously as gods or animals. Enjoying it,
too, no doubt, as the sympathetic poet must have
felt, to put such a sense of simple delight into
the lines. We also enjoy it, when we are willing
to yield ourselves lazily to the impulse, making
no effort to hurry through with it or to choke
it in its inception.

Nothing man does in life is more perfectly
instinctive and natural than yawning. Although
but a temporary tendency, the impulse is, for
the time being, almost as irresistible as the
desire to breathe. Yet in the economy of nature
it has but one use and one purpose: it is a
gymnastic. When the body has lain motionless for
some time, as in sleep, or when the powers are
at low ebb through fatigue, drowsiness, or
ennui, and something is required to restore the
system to a state of general activity, nature
provides this involuntary inclination, with its
graduated series of movements, called yawning.
Nature's gymnastic, it embodies all the laws of
growth needed for movements that are to give
physical growth and refreshment, and some of the
laws which are necessary to the higher growth,
so-called, of the emotions and the
intellect.

A good yawn is always slow, and the best
uses every articulation in the body probably
every muscle-possibly refreshes every nerve. Not
all at once or in jerks, but slowly, in perfect
successions and rhythms, with the best possible
breathing. Certainly no gymnast, with the single
exception of Francois Delsarte, ever so arranged
the same expenditure of force, nervous and
muscular, as to result in an equal amount of
invigorating effect upon the system.

Succession, opposition, and parallelism
these are the three orders of motion used in
yawning. The primary motion is probably that
moving or pulling against the motionless, which
results in the stimulation of the motionless and
its consequent antagonistic action. This we call
opposition. But since this primary activity
takes place in the internal organs, and is thus
concealed from the casual or unpractised
observer, we can best begin in the present study
with those successions which it generates.

Now, what does the ordinary onlooker see in
the progress of a yawn?

At the same time that the muscles of the
throat are stretched, the upper eyelid begins to
droop, but not as in sleep, for the eyeball
wishes to roll upward, rousing the lower lid to
action and making it present some opposition to
the downward pull of the muscles of the cheek
when the jaw drops. Similarly, the contracted
eyebrow presents something for the upper lid to
pull against when it begins to close upon the
eye. The whole face seems now to be struggling
to prevent the shutting of the eyes, one set of
muscles acting in opposition to another. In this
way a perfect means of refreshment has been
supplied to the face by the muscular activities
passing over it in succession. The blood has
been brought to the surface, and a reactionary
stimulant sent back to that intimate friend of
the face, the brain.

So far, at least, the movement has conformed
to the definition of a perfect gymnastic, viz.,
the greatest motion with the least motive. For
the better the gymnastic, the more perfectly at
rest are the higher orders of nervous activity,
and the motive force the more completely
supplied by the automatic processes of the mind,
rather than the voluntary.

All parts of the body axe alike refreshed by
a perfect gymnastic. We have seen the face
moving one muscle alter another ; previous to
this, however, the throat was stretched, and
even before this all the breathing muscles,
especially the internal ones; and, now the
increased activity of the circulation furnishes
a stimulant to the brain, making the automatic
impulse still stronger than before and the yawn
is either repeated or continued.

If continued, we notice that the head begins
to roll on its most habituai and instinctive
lines of motion, sometimes pulled back in
opposition to the opening of the jaw. The
muscles of the neck having by this means been
used, another stimulating wave of circulation is
sent back to the brain, and the ganglia that
govern the muscles of the neck and chest are
aroused. And now the chest muscles contract and
we see the ribs raised, sometimes to such an
extent as to stimulate the diaphragm and other
interior muscles of breathing, which are so
attached as to fix or move alternately the ribs
or arms. By this time still further automatic
stimulus has arisen by means of increased
circulation, and motion is communicated to the
entire frame. The arms rise slowly and
rhythmically and are stretched above the head,
or sometimes waved in the air. At this point we
must have readied the "going-on-all-fours" stage
of nervous excitation, for legs and arms now
stretch and pull, first in succession (the legs
last), then in opposition, each pulling against
the other. A tendency to do as one's neighbors
do causes each new muscle to combine in action
with one of those already moving, and then
another with this, and so on over the whole
body.

Observe that the external manifestation of
this succession of motion originates always in
the face and extends itself over the whole body
like a wave, reaching the feet last. We shall
afterward find that this law of sequence is trie
of all natural and beautiful on.

Observe also that the time is always slow
and soothing, and without having a positive
recurrent beat, there is still something
rhythmic in the action. There is never anything
that in the remotest degree resembles a jerk. On
the contrary, the time is measured (metre), and
the motion of all the parts harmonic. Contrast
the restful movement of the yawn with the
ungraceful and fatiguing jerkiness of the
mind-directed motions often used in work,
gesture, and gymnastics. The order of succession
in which each muscle takes up its part of the
work, is one element in the perfect harmony
which should prevail. Another is that the work
be proportionally di vicled among all the
muscles, so that each has only a pleasurable
amount and knows just when to begin, and acts
only in its own turn and in its own time.

How does each muscle know its own time?

How does each pendulum know its own
time?

For the purpose of the present paper, it may
be sufficient to say that the laws of vibration
are common to all physical objects that the wave
current which incites the muscle to activity,
and the chemical changes in the nerves that
transmit that current, are vibratory. The
application of force from the muscles to tue
bones, making each bone a lever or a pendulum,
is still all in obedience to the laws of
gravitation.

Hence, every bone and mus1e has a time ratio
peculiar to itself. This is the natural,
automatic period of motion most easy, most
expressive, and most economical. And wonderful
as it makes the structure of the human body
appear (though it may readily be shown how by
natural selection this state of things would
come about), all the different time-ratios are
harmonic that is to say, so intricately
inter-dependent that each (when in automatic or
other perfect use) is in relation to every
other. All breaks in this harmony are caused by
the interference of ignorant mentality or of
abnormal (sinful) motives. Unnatural habits,
produced in the first place by a false social
environment, cause injury to some organs by over
action, while others sink into decay through
idleness or ennui.

One of the simplest, because most purely
physical and automatic, of the harmonies of the
body is seen in the yawn. If the step from its
simplicity of purpose to the complexity of the
possible mental and emotional uses of the body,
appears a great one, the construction of an
intermediary scientific gymnastic may prove the
existent connection.

Why not adopt yawning itself as our
gymnastic, since it so perfectly ifiustrates the
laws of the body? There are several reasons why
other movements are better. For one, the yawn is
too catching; it would too readily become a it,
and might appear on inconvenient occasions.
Doubtless, within limits, it could be encouraged
usefully. It would be funny, at least, to see
fifty boys in a school, or a thousand soldiers
in a regiment, all taking exercise in this
manner!

If we examine many accepted systems of
gymnastics, we shall find in most that the
rhythms of the body are wholly disregarded, and
the conventionalized rhythm of a musical
instrument is substituted. Further, that the
orderly and graceful arrangements, successions,
and oppositions of the movements and attitudes
of the members, are either neglected or
subordinated to the relations of individuals to
each other, and of all the class to the
floor!

For example, in teaching walking to our boys
or soldiers, all must, for the sake of the
uniformity of the whole, take steps of the same
length, regardless of the different development
of the inchvidual leg-pendulums; so that while
the mass moves well, only a few individuals are
able to do so. This may be a necessity in
armies; but it is a poor standard for personal
culture. Yet the teaching of marching is about
the only teaching that exists, of that superb
gymnastic and accomplishment graceful
walking.

A gymnastic, while stimulative and
developing to the body, might also be
educational. Then why spend time and effort
merely to accelerate the circulation and
increase the bulk, when at the same time bulk of
better shape could be obtained by means of a
gymnastic that, starting with the laws of the
body's growth, would end in those of the soul's,
including development in all forms of grace and
charm, of motion and expression, through all the
varied acts and relations of social
existence.